SUNRISE, Fla. – Florida Panthers Executive Vice President and General Manager Dale Tallon announced today that the club has acquired F Jaromir Jagr from the New Jersey Devils in exchange for Florida’s second-round draft pick in 2015 and a conditional third-round draft pick in 2016.

Jagr, 43, ranks first among active National Hockey League leaders in points (1,784), games played (1,530), assists (1,068), goals (716), plus/minus (+284) and power play goals (202). Among all-time NHL leaders, he ranks first in game-winning goals (127), fifth in points, sixth in goals, seventh in assists and 13th in games played.

added 4:38pm,

No salary retained in Jagr deal. Condition on third round pick is that Devils decide which of two third round picks Panthers have they want

- The biggest problem that’s bothered the Bruins on defense all season is their inability to protect the house consistently. Their coaches repeatedly stress the importance of stationing at least one man in front of the net to disrupt shots, block pucks, and lift sticks. If the Bruins occupy the net-front area correctly, it leaves others to work their way out from there and cover the rest of the defensive zone. It’s been easier said than done. The Bruins have been too quick to leave the space open to hunt down loose pucks or close on opponents. “The front of the net is the main area,” Adam McQuaid said. “That’s something that’s a team thing. It’s five guys coming back and getting in the right positions, then working from there.”

- Chatter around the league pegs New Jersey as a franchise that could seek a new general manager. Lou Lamoriello is in his 28th season at the Devils’ helm. They have good young pieces in Cory Schneider and Adam Henrique. But too much of the roster has gone gray.

"It's a transition. It's not a rebuild," Lamoriello said Friday morning when the subject was raised by NJ Advance Media.

So what is the difference between rebuilding and transitioning?

"Rebuilding is a totally different word. Transition means the amount of time it takes for that chemistry to get together or that new person to get comfortable in what he's doing within the system. That's a transition," Lamoriello explained.

"When you try and build and try and do things, it's always for that championship situation. Along the way there are some growing pains. We made a transition and that's on me with the young defensemen earlier in the year. Unfortunately, one of our young defensemen who played a key role (Damon Severson), got hurt... In the big picture, it's going to be a foundation."

Brodeur deserved the same grand sendoff that Steve Yzerman and Nicklas Lidstrom got in Detroit, that Mike Modano got in Dallas even after leaving for the Red Wings, that Daniel Alfredsson got in Ottawa even after an apparent fracture with management and ownership.

Maybe Brodeur’s ego was still hurt that he wanted to play one more year and Lou Lamoriello wouldn’t make it happen. Maybe Lou was just being stubborn Lou and didn’t feel it was important enough to make sure Thursday’s event was in Newark, not St. Louis.

But it’s a real shame it did. It was the most unemotional presser you’ve ever seen for a player as great as Brodeur. The Devils were barely mentioned, his Hall of Fame career almost glossed over.

-Michael Russo of the Star Tribune on Martin Brodeur. Read more from Russo plus other hockey topics...

It seldom ends in a nice, neat package any more, because we are in sports Viagra era.

We live longer and our idols tend to perform at passable or better levels for longer periods of time because of better training, nutrition, medicine, travel — and, drug-testing often being half a step behind the cheaters, sometimes chemical intervention.

Go hard, don’t worry about going home.

It’s still said that if Wayne Gretzky can be traded, than anyone can be traded. True. The addendum is that if Gretzky can play out the string with the New York Rangers and St. Louis Blues, than anyone ought to be able to play out the string for whomever and for however long they want.

Still, watching Martin Brodeur retire from the NHL on Thursday surrounded by the logo and colours of a team for which he’s played all of seven games seemed a little much, even by todays standards of disposability.

He’s a New Jersey Devil — no, he IS the New Jersey Devils.

continued which includes an interview Elliotte Friedman did with Brodeur today...

It’s not too difficult to make the argument that Lamoriello is the best general manager in New York sports history. After taking over in 1987, his first 25 years on the job saw the team win three Stanley Cups, make it to two more Cup finals, appear in two more Conference finals and qualify for the postseason in 22 of 25 tries. But that brings us up to 2012, when they beat the Rangers in conference finals, lost to the Kings in the Cup final — and haven’t seen the playoffs in the two seasons since.

It’s looking now to be a third season in a row, sitting 15 points out of the final wild-card spot, so maybe it was only a quarter-century that Lamoriello was granted his prescience. Or maybe what he’s doing this season, with his three-headed coaching monster — him at the helm, with Adam Oates and Scott Stevens splitting the coaching responsibilities by splitting the ice in half — is the first step in setting the team set up for the future.

But really, the first step should be conceding this year. And that means actively engaging the trade market before the March 2 deadline and getting a head start on receiving some return for a handful of veteran and expiring contracts.